


nothing burns like the cold

by abrightgrayworld



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Christmas, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, three in one sickfic winter soldier pov and post-iw steve/bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 05:39:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17238437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abrightgrayworld/pseuds/abrightgrayworld
Summary: Three Christmases in the life of Bucky Barnes.





	nothing burns like the cold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wintersrchild](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=wintersrchild).



> This is a gift for wintersrchild as part of the Cap Secret Santa exchange! A couple of notes:
> 
> \- Rebecca is Bucky's sister in the comics (which i found out from a quick google search)  
> \- the woman in the second part is just an OC SHIELD member  
> \- I'm not Christian or anything, so actual Christmas stuff is kinda vague. Also, O Holy Night is such a good song??   
> \- content warning for gun violence in the second part
> 
> I hope you all enjoy! This was a blast to write.

i.

Steve is really sick.

Bucky presses his ear to the closed door, listening to Mama and Steve’s Ma whisper. Sarah Rogers had come rushing to their home, face pale and drawn, with Steve’s slight, shivering body in her arms. Mama had taken one look at them and hurried them inside from the cold, guiding them into Bucky’s room where he had been awake anyway, too excited at the prospect of Christmas presents to sleep. She sent him out with a curt “Stay out here and don’t come in,” yelled at Papa to call for a doctor, and shut the door firmly.

Now Bucky sits outside his room, shivering with cold and fear. From what he’s hearing, Steve has gotten an especially bad cold. He’s been coughing deeply, and his fever is dangerously high. As much as his Ma had tried, his fever hadn’t broken, especially in the Rogers’ cold, drafty apartment, and so she’d come here for help.

The door opens, and Bucky yelps and scuttles backward. Mama and Mrs. Rogers come out into the hallway. Mama’s lips purse disapprovingly, but instead of scolding him, she motions him and Steve’s Ma towards the living room.

“Keep quiet so that Rebecca doesn’t wake up,” she says softly, moving to the kitchen to put on some tea. Bucky and Mrs. Rogers sit on the couch. Bucky glances up at her, taking in how scared she looks. His heart lurches.

“Mrs. Rogers?” he asks in a small voice. “Is Steve going to be okay?”

Steve’s Ma looks at him. Both she and Mama are practical people, and it’s a common enough rule in both their households that they avoid lying to their children whenever possible. It’s why he and Steve have always known that Santa isn’t real, though they had had to fight off some other, very angry children that they’d told that to. So Bucky knows that whatever she says, it’s going to be as true as possible, even if he doesn’t want to hear it.

“I don’t know, Buck,” she says hoarsely. “We’ll have to wait for the doctor to see.”

Bucky looks at his hands. “It’s Christmas,” he says. “Nothing would happen to him on Christmas, would it?” Steve’s Ma doesn’t reply, so he tries again to make her feel better. “Steve’s gotten sick loads of times before, and he’s gotten better every time.”

Mrs. Rogers nods, and they both subside into silence until Mama serves the tea.

Papa comes in with the doctor soon enough, and Bucky is once again left to press his ear against the door of his room, listening to their low voices. He makes out a little bit.

“—fever’s not breaking.” That’s Steve’s Ma. “I’ve tried everything but it’s just been climbing.”

The doctor replies with something Bucky can’t hear, and then Mrs. Rogers speaks again, her voice shrill. “So there is nothing you can do?”

“Not until the fever breaks,” the doctor says. His voice is heavy. “And if it doesn’t break soon or if it gets any higher, I’m not sure he’ll survive the night.”

Bucky leaps back from the door like he’s been scalded, eyes wide with horror. Steve could die?

The door opens again, and Mama escorts the doctor to the door, listening to his instructions carefully. Bucky creeps into his room and sees Steve’s Ma sitting in a chair by his bed, one hand covering her face. Bucky stands next to her and takes her free hand, and she wraps an arm around him and lifts him up into her lap like he’s a little boy, even though he’s nearly twelve. Steve’s Ma is almost as dear to him as Mama is, so he lets her, and truth be told, he needs the comfort, too.

Steve is lying in the cot next to Bucky’s bed, buried under a heap of blankets, chest barely moving. His face is flushed but he’s shivering, groaning softly in his sleep. His eyes move restlessly under his eyelids. Bucky hasn’t ever seen him so sick in his life, and his heart clenches again. Without meaning to, his eyes fill with tears.

Steve’s Ma hugs him tight, her chin on his shoulder, and they both watch the rise and fall of his chest. At some point, Mama comes into the room with a couple of blankets and wraps one around them. She takes another one and tucks it around Steve, then wraps the last one around her own shoulders and settles into a chair on the opposite side of the bed.

Mrs. Rogers says, “Winnie, it’s alright if you and Bucky want to sleep—”

“Nonsense,” Mama says. “You know I think of Steve as if he’s my own boy. We’ll all be here to watch him.”

Bucky has never loved his mother more than in that instant. He meets her eyes and hopes she understands how grateful he is at being allowed to stay up.

Bucky feels himself drifting off despite his best efforts. When he next opens his eyes, the room is silent. Mrs. Rogers seems to be asleep, her arms loose around him, and Mama is leaning back with her eyes closed as well.

Suddenly recalling why they’re there, Bucky turns to Steve, exhaling with relief when he notes that Steve is still breathing. His face is still flushed, hair dark with sweat, but he seems to be resting more peacefully.

Wait. Sweat.

“Mrs. Rogers! Mama! Fever’s broken!” he yells, startling them awake. Both Mama and Mrs. Rogers let out a few choice curse words, which surprises him into slightly hysterical laughter, and Mama glares at him, though her lips twitch, too.

“Oh, thank God,” Mrs. Rogers breathes, looking at her son. Bucky hops out of her lap as she stands and unwraps Steve from the mound of blankets and feels his forehead. “Fever’s gone,” she says, and her voice breaks with relief. Mama comes around the bed and hugs them both tightly.

“I say it’s about time we all get some rest,” she says. “Come on, Sarah, there’s a spare cot in our room. Bucky, go to sleep, and if anything’s wrong, come get us.”

Bucky nods mutely and gets into bed, not protesting as Mama tucks him in. In the dark of the room, Bucky stares at Steve’s prone figure, watching carefully to see his chest rise and fall.

“Merry Christmas, Stevie,” he says softly, then lets himself drift off to sleep.

Forget Christmas presents—Steve being okay is the best present he’s ever had.

 

ii.

The Asset finds the house easily enough. It’s decorated brightly, coloured lights woven around the large pine tree in the yard, wreaths and bows on the doors and windows, more lights around the frames. Evidently, the owner celebrates Christmas quite avidly.

The Asset scopes out the street and ascertains that no one is around to see or interrupt. He slips onto the front porch of the house, shrouded in his black outfit and unseen in the dark, and picks the lock quietly. He opens the door just enough that he can slip in, then pushes it so that it rests just in the frame. He doesn’t want to risk the noise it would make when closed, and he needs it to swing back easily so he can make his escape if need be.

Of course, there’s never a need, but it never hurts to be prepared.

The living room is dark, as is the remainder of the ground floor. The Asset takes a careful look around, mentally filing notes, then approaches the stairs. The Asset dislikes stairs—they creak alarmingly for anyone who doesn’t know how to avoid those parts—but it’s the simplest way up. He sticks to the edges near the banister, testing lightly with his weight before stepping, and makes it up to the landing. Another sweep with his eyes—and there. Light is shining from underneath the door of one of the rooms.

The Asset has found his target.

He draws his gun and creeps to the door. Draws a breath, shoves it open, swings his gun up and—

Stops short.

A woman with silver hair and wrinkled skin sits up in a king-sized bed, placidly sipping a cup of tea. Her eyes meet his, and she tips her head in welcome.

“I’ve been expecting you,” she says.

For some reason, the Asset is frozen. He runs through his missive in his head: find the interloper who had escaped with a huge number of Hydra’s secret files, retrieve them, kill the interloper, return. He had been given the blurry security cam pictures of the woman and memorized every detail in them. The woman before him is clearly her.

Then why can’t he move?

The woman sets her cup down on the nightstand next to the bed, and then she gestures to a chair beside her bed.

“Come have a seat, won’t you?”

There’s no fear. That’s why the Asset is stunned. They programmed into him that even if the target shows fear, cries, begs, screams, he is to kill them. He has no idea what to do when the target is calm and unafraid. The missive in his head, though blaring, somehow takes a backseat to this bizarre picture in front of him.

The woman glances at the gun and nods. “I know I’m going to die tonight. I would like the chance to speak with my murderer.” Her tone, though soft, brooks no argument, snaps out like an order. “Please, sit.”

He sits.

“The files are under the bed,” the woman says conversationally. “All copied and sent out to the relevant agencies. I won’t be needing them anymore.” The Asset doesn’t react, and the woman frowns faintly in surprise before her face clears.

“Poor thing,” she murmurs. “You don’t know anything beyond what they program into you, do you?”

“My mission is to get the files and kill you,” the Asset responds. Her words mean nothing to him. The woman hums, and her gaze is soft.

“Do you know anything outside of your mission?” she asks.

“My mission is to get the files and kill you,” the Asset repeats. In a display completely inappropriate for the assassin he has become, he shifts restlessly in his seat.

“Do you know your name? Your favourite colour or food? Today is Christmas; do you celebrate it?”

The Asset does not respond. The woman’s eyes are so very sad. She feels no emotion for herself, only, strangely, for him.

“Do you know how I knew you were coming tonight?” she asks, changing the subject. “Those files were about you. Records of your missions. All encoded and very vague, of course, but enough to get information about you into the world. And enough to let me know what would happen to me.”

The Asset is still. He says, forcing the words out, “You aren’t afraid.”

The woman watches him closely. “No.”

“I don’t understand.”

Her gaze drifts out the window, which is cracked open a little. “I stopped feeling afraid for myself a long time ago. It made me an excellent agent for SHIELD, but it also made me take a lot of risks that, frankly, I’m surprised I didn’t die from. As far as I’m concerned, this is just a consequence I should have faced a long time ago.”

“I don’t understand,” the Asset repeats, more faintly, but the word “SHIELD” is starting to break him out of this strange little trance. He suddenly feels the weight of the gun in his hand, and he remembers another command in his missive, hissed viciously into his ear before he set out: _make her suffer._ He is to torture her, then. The thought unsettles him, and that unsettles him further. He doesn’t usually feel that about his orders.

He doesn’t usually feel anything.

The woman notices his suddenly stiff posture, and she sighs. “Time’s up, then.” A pause. “God bless you, Winter Soldier,” she says, and leans back, closing her eyes. The sound of distant carolers drifts through the open window, discordant in the expectant silence that has fallen in the room. “O Holy Night,” the woman says, a faint smile on her face. “My favourite.”

The Asset stands and shoots the woman between the eyes.

It’s as quick and painless a death as he can give her.

He does not know it, but this first act of mercy, of defiance, is a catalyst that prepares him for the sight of a golden-haired, blue-eyed man on a bridge, a man that he once knew. It is the act that saves him.

The Asset grabs the files from underneath the bed. He walks out the door and shuts it behind him. The carolers are closer now, on this street. In the shadows, he waits for them to pass. They look to be a family, identical dark skin, brown eyes, and wide smiles. A little girl sits on one of the dads’ shoulders, swinging her legs happily as they sing. Though many of the children are young, their voices are angelic. The two fathers’ harmonies are low and grounding among the higher voices of the young ones.

The Asset watches them and yearns distantly for…something.

“A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices/For yonder breaks a new glorious morn,” they sing, and the Asset cannot move, assaulted by…a memory? A feeling? The feeling of warmth, of listening to this song, encased in someone’s soft arms, holding onto a skin-and-bones hand.

“Fall on your knees,” sing the carolers, and the Asset very nearly does, overcome. He manages to catch himself, his training saving him and taking over his brain. The singers pass, and for a long moment, the Asset focuses on the silence and on quelling the sudden tremulousness in his chest.

His brain crisply tells him that he needs to report back to Hydra now. The memory of the order straightens his spine and makes his face and thoughts go blank. The woman becomes just another successful kill in his report, and the singers and their song are forgotten, dismissed as irrelevant.

But the whole way back to the base, even as he gives his report and is subsequently shoved into a chair to be wiped and reprogrammed, the Asset does one thing that marks him to be a changed man, to the alarm of his superiors.

He cries.

 

iii.

Sometime after it’s all over, after Thanos and dying and nothingness and the relief of finding Steve and the others shaken, hurt, but alive, Bucky wakes up right before sunrise. Steve is wrapped limply but warmly around him, his breath soft against Bucky’s ear. Bucky rubs at his eyes and turns his head slightly to glance at the calendar—it’s the morning of Christmas. Strange that for all Steve has been talking excitedly about their plans to spend Christmas with the whole team and their families instead of at Tony’s fancy parties this year, Bucky has hardly felt Christmas approaching.

To be fair, he supposes, he hasn’t _really_ spent the holiday with anyone since…well, since the 1930s. He did celebrate it with his teammates during the war, but that doesn’t count. (There’s another memory, of a woman in a brightly-lit house who talked to him like a person even when he wasn’t really one, and a memory of a family singing a song. Bucky isn’t ready to think about that one yet.)

Christmas was real when he would spend it with his family and Steve and Sarah—when Steve wasn’t sick—watching all of them splurge for this one holiday and filling their small houses with laughter and baked goods and dancing and love. He doesn’t have his family anymore, but he does have Steve, with his childish enthusiasm for lights and wreaths and the cheesy holiday movies that he’s grown to love. Christmas is really about Steve, now.

Almost everything is about Steve. That’s the one thing that has never changed about Bucky, not in the century he’s been alive.

Bucky slips out of bed from Steve’s warm embrace and creeps out to the balcony, thin woolen blanket around his shoulders. His steps are light, quiet, reverent in the hush of the few moments before dawn. He leans on the railing and blows out a soft breath, watching it mist in the air. The city looms out before him, roofs and treetops covered in snow, softening the edges of New York City’s greyness. There’s life to the city in winter that he’s hard-pressed to find any other time, but maybe that’s just his own paradoxical bias towards the season. He’s lived in the winter for so long, both in real life and in his own head, that he finds himself restless at other times. In some ways, he’s always living in winter. It rests in his title, in his heart, his soul, his very being. It weighs him down and freezes him over on the bad days, and it gives him frissons on the good days, constant reminders not to forget.

Because the thing is, Bucky Barnes will never be at peace with what he’s done. No matter Steve’s reassurances, no matter the team’s and the world’s gradual acceptance of him, there won’t be a day where he won’t remember his past.  There won’t be a day where he doesn’t remember the blood coating his hands, gleaming darkly on the metal one; the solid weight of a loaded, ready-to-fire gun in his hands; the echo of piercing screams and wailing in his ears. He will always, always live in the winter, needs it to keep him on the straight and narrow as he carries out the penance that he knows will never make up for it all.

Bucky won’t ever be at peace with himself, and he will never repent enough, but he will try. And if he allows in a little warm sunlight into his life in the form of Steve, his team’s affections, the leaps of joy his heart feels from petting a dog, or trying new flavours of ice cream, or testing out a new twenty-first century invention, well. He’s only human. Maybe he can be a little selfish.

His musings are interrupted as the first fingers of dawn touch the horizon. He crosses to the edge of the balcony, where the wall and railing form a tiny, rectangular crevice that shields him a little from the cold, and slides down to sit. He clutches his blanket tighter around him and draws his knees to his chest.

New York wakes up in a quietly beautiful display of pinks, yellows, and oranges, intertwined with the soft notes of birdsong, and Bucky’s chest aches and aches with the loveliness of it. He soaks it in, closing his eyes against the tears that have started falling down his cheeks and tipping his face up into its healing light. From this vantage point far above his city, surrounded with the fledgling hues of the sun, his lover resting quietly in a little apartment they share as their home, Bucky Barnes comes as close to peace as he ever has since he first entered the war.

A few moments later, the balcony door opens softly, and Steve comes stumbling out, a blanket also around his shoulders.

“Hey, Buck,” he murmurs, coming to stand at the railing. His face is open, awed as he takes in the dawn. He’s resplendent in the light, hair mussed and poking everywhere, wearing a loose, baggy t-shirt that makes him look years younger and softer. “Beautiful, isn’t it.”

“Do you remember,” Bucky says, trying to conjure up the memory, “When we’d wait up to watch the sunrise when we were kids? Every time we went over to each other’s place, we’d wait for everyone to sleep, and then we’d stay up all night.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, and his eyes are suddenly bright, too, both at Bucky’s remembering and at the bittersweet memory of better, lighter days. “Our mas would yell at us, but they’d fuss and wrap us in blankets and push us to bed.”

Bucky nods, resting his chin on his knees. “We should do that more often. I didn’t realize how much I missed it.”

“Me too,” Steve says, voice rough. He swipes at his eyes, trying to pass the move off as casual, then stretches. “It’s freezing out here. Why don’t we go back inside, and I’ll make hot chocolate and pancakes for breakfast?” His eyes sparkle. “I’ll make them festive and everything for Christmas.”

“Sounds good, Stevie,” Bucky says, smiling. Steve walks over to him and offers him a hand up. For a second, Bucky’s vision blurs and he’s back on that train, hanging on by his fingertips with the world rushing by below his feet, eyes locked onto Steve’s desperate, shaking hand reached out to him. For a second, Bucky relives the moment he lost everything.

But the memory fades and dissolves into nothing. Here in the light of dawn, on Christmas day, with Steve there and waiting, that fear can’t touch him. He can set down his heart-burdens, if for these few moments.

Bucky reaches up and allows himself to be pulled into the warmth of Steve’s arms, and together, content and warm and in love, they head inside.

**Author's Note:**

> The end! Kudos, comments, and bookmarks would be an absolute dream to receive. I haven't written these two before, and I would love to hear thoughts on characterization, favourite lines, etc. 
> 
> Thank you all for reading! And happy new year! <3


End file.
